National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is a historic art museum located between 7th, 9th, F, G Streets NW in Washington, D. C. in the United States. Founded in 1962 and opened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution, its collections focus on images of famous Americans. The museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building, as is the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the two museums are the eponym for the Gallery Place Washington Metro station, located at the corner of F and 7th Streets NW. The first portrait gallery in the United States was Charles Willson Peale's "American Pantheon", established in 1796, it closed after two years. In 1859, the National Portrait Gallery in London opened; the idea of a federally owned national portrait gallery can be traced back to 1886, when Robert C. Winthrope, president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, visited the National Portrait Gallery in London. Upon his return to the United States, Winthrope began pressing for the establishment of a similar museum in America.
In January 1919, the Smithsonian Institution entered into a cooperative endeavor with the American Federation of Arts and the American Mission to Negotiate Peace to create a National Art Committee. The committee's goal was to commission portraits of famous leaders from the various nations involved in World War I. Among the committee's members were oil company executive Herbert L. Pratt, Ethel Sperry Crocker, architect Abram Garfield, Mary Williamson Averell, financier J. P. Morgan, attorney Charles Phelps Taft, steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott; the portraits commissioned went on display in the National Museum of Natural History in May 1921. This formed the nucleus of. In 1937, Andrew W. Mellon donated his large collection of classic and modernist art to the United States, which led to the foundation of the National Gallery of Art; the collection included a large number of portraits. Mellon asked. David E. Finley, Jr. an attorney and one of Mellon's closest friends, was named the first director of the National Gallery of Art, he pushed hard over the next several years for the establishment of a portrait gallery.
In 1957, a proposal was made by the federal government to demolish the Old Patent Office Building. After a public outcry and an agreement to save the historic structure, Congress authorized the Smithsonian Institution to use the structure as a museum in March 1958. Shortly thereafter, the Smithsonian Art Commission asked the Chancellor of the Smithsonian to appoint a committee to organize a national portrait museum and to plan for the establishment of this museum in the Old Patent Office Building; this committee was created in 1960. The National Portrait Gallery was authorized and founded by Congress in 1962; the enabling legislation defined its purpose as displaying portraits of "men and women who have made significant contributions to the history and culture of the people of the United States." The legislation specified, that the museum's collection be limited to painting, prints and engravings. Despite the Smithsonian's own extensive collection of art and Mellon's collection, there was little for the National Portrait Gallery to display.
"To found a portrait gallery in the 1960s," Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley said, was difficult because "American portraiture has reached the zenith in price and the nadir in supply." Ripley, whose leadership of the Smithsonian began in 1964, was a strong supporter of the new museum, however. He encouraged the museum's curators to build a collection from scratch based on individual pieces chosen through high-quality scholarship rather than buying complete collections from others; the NPG's collection was built over the next five years through donations and purchases. The museum had little money at this time, it located items it wanted and asked the owner to donate it. The first NPG exhibit, "Nucleus for a National Collection," went on display in the Arts and Industries Building in 1965; the following year, the NPG completed the Catalog of American Portraits, the first inventory of portraiture held by the Smithsonian. The catalog documented the physical characteristics of each artwork, its provenance.
The museum moved into the Old Patent Office Building with the National Fine Arts Collection in 1966. It opened to the public on October 7, 1968; the Old Patent Office Building was renovated in 1969 by the architectural firm of Faulkner and Vanderpool. The renovation won the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award in 1970; the following year, the NPG began the National Portrait Survey, an attempt to catalog and photograph all portraits in all formats held by every public and private collection and museum in the country. On July 4, 1973, the NPG opened "The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, 1770–1800," the first exhibit at the museum dedicated to African Americans. Philanthropist Paul Mellon donated 761 portraits by French-American engraver C. B. J. F. de Saint-Mémin to the museum in 1974. Congress passed legislation in January 1976 allowing the National Portrait Gallery to collect portraits in media other than graphic arts; this permitted the NPG to begin collecting photographs.
The Library of Congress had long opposed the move in order to protect it
Presidents of the United States on U.S. postage stamps
Presidents of the United States have appeared on U. S. postage stamps since the mid–1800s. The United States Post Office Department released its first two postage stamps in 1847, featuring George Washington on one, Benjamin Franklin on the other; the advent of presidents on postage stamps has been definitive to U. S. postage stamp design since the first issues were released and set the precedent that U. S. stamp designs would follow for many generations. The paper postage stamp itself was born of utility, as something simple and easy to use was needed to confirm that postage had been paid for an item of mail. People could purchase several stamps at one time and no longer had to make a special trip to pay for postage each time an item was mailed; the postage stamp design was printed from a fine engraving and were impossible to forge adequately. This is. Moreover, the subject theme of a president, along with the honors associated with it, is what began to define the stamp issues in ways that took it beyond the physical postage stamp itself and is why people began to collect them.
There exist entire series of stamp issues. The portrayals of Washington and Franklin on U. S. postage have appeared on numerous postage stamps. The presidential theme in stamp designs would continue as the decades passed, each period issuing stamps with variations of the same basic presidential-portrait design theme; the portrayals of U. S. presidents on U. S. postage has remained a significant subject and design theme on definitive postage throughout most of U. S. stamp issuance history. Engraved portrayals of U. S. presidents were the only designs found on U. S. postage from 1847 until 1869, with the one exception of Benjamin Franklin, whose historical stature was comparable to that of a president, although his appearance was an acknowledgement of his role as the first U. S. Postmaster General. During this period, the U. S. Post Office issued various postage stamps bearing the depictions of George Washington foremost, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, the last of whom first appeared in 1866, one year after his death.
After twenty-two years of issuing stamps with only presidents and Franklin, the Post Office in 1869 issued a series of eleven postage stamps that were regarded by the American public as being abruptly different from the previous issues and whose designs were considered at the time to be a break from the tradition of honoring American forefathers on the nation's postage stamps. These new issues had other nonpresidential subjects and a design style, different, one issue bearing a horse, another a locomotive, while others were depicted with nonpresidential themes. Washington and Lincoln were to be found only once in this series of eleven stamps, which some considered to be below par in design and image quality; as a result, this pictographic series was met with general disdain and proved so unpopular that the issues were sold for only one year where remaining stocks were pulled from post offices across the United States. In 1870 the Post Office resumed its tradition of printing postage stamps with the portraits of American Presidents and Franklin but now added several other famous Americans, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Alexander Hamilton and General Winfield Scott among other notable Americans.
Indeed, the balance had now shifted somewhat. Moreover, presidents appeared on less than half of the denominations in the definitive sets of 1890, 1917, 1954 and 1965, while occupying only a slight majority of values in the definitive issues of 1894–98, 1902 and 1922–25. Presidential images did, overwhelmingly dominate the definitive sets released in 1908 and 1938: on the former, 10 of the 11 stamps offered the same image of Washington, while in the 1938 "prexies" series, 29 of the 32 stamps presented busts of presidents; the 1975 Americana Series marked a clear end to this tradition, being the first U. S. definitive issue on which no presidential portrait appeared. Every U. S. president, deceased as of 2016 has appeared on at least one U. S. postage stamp, all but Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford have appeared on at least two. George H. W. Bush, who died November 30, 2018, is the only deceased president to not yet be featured on a U. S. postage stamp. The portrayals of various American presidents made their first appearances on U.
S. postage at different times for different reasons. Among the most definitive is George Washington, whose engraving appeared on the first U. S. Postage stamps released by the U. S. Post Office, on July 1 of 1847. Thomas Jefferson first appeared on U. S. postage in March 1856, nine years after the first issues were released. Fifteen years of stamp issuance would pass before Andrew Jackson would appear on a U. S. postage stamp. However, by this time, Jackson had been presented on two Confederate stamps, making him the only U. S. president introduced to postage by the Confederacy rather than the U. S. Post Office. Abraham Lincoln appeared for the first time on a U. S. postage stamp with the issue of 1866, released on April 14, 1866, the first anniversary of his death. Up until this time only the portrayals of Washington, Franklin and Jackson were found on U. S. postage. The First Washington postage stamp; the 5-cent Franklin and the 10-cent Washington postage stamps issued in 1847 were the first posta
Boston Athenæum
The Boston Athenæum is one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It is one of a number of membership libraries, for which patrons pay a yearly subscription fee to use Athenæum services; the institution was founded in 1807 by the Anthology Club of Massachusetts. It is located at 10 1/2 Beacon Street on Beacon Hill. Resources of the Boston Athenæum include a large circulating book collection. Special treasures include the largest portion of President George Washington's library from Mount Vernon; the Boston Athenæum is known for the many prominent writers and politicians who have been members, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. John Quincy Adams, Margaret Fuller, Francis Parkman, Amy Lowell, John F. Kennedy, Edward M. Kennedy. In 1803, a young Harvard graduate by the name of Phineas Adams established the magazine The Monthly Anthology, or Magazine of Polite Literature. Adams left the New England area in 1804.
By 1805, these young men founded the Anthology Society. The Boston Athenæum was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society, literary individuals who began with a plan to have a reading room; the first librarian, William Smith Shaw, the new trustees had ambitious plans for the Athenæum, basing their vision on the Athenæum and Lyceum in Liverpool, England. Their vision was expanded to include a library encompassing books in all subjects in English and foreign languages, a gallery of sculptures and paintings, collections of coins and natural curiosities, a laboratory; this ambitious design has developed over the past two hundred years with some changes in focus but remaining true to the ideal expressed in the institution's seal, chosen in 1814: Literarum fructus dulces, meaning "Sweet are the Fruits of Letters." The first yearly subscriptions were sold for ten dollars. The Athenæum's collections were non-circulating, meaning that members could not check out books to take home. At first, the Boston Athenæum rented rooms in 1809 bought a small house adjacent to the King's Chapel Burying Ground, in 1822 moved into a mansion on Pearl Street, where a lecture hall and gallery space were added within four years.
In 1823, Shaw stepped down as librarian, the King's Chapel Library and the Theological Library belonging to the Boston Association of Ministers were deposited in the Athenæum. Work was begun on a shelf catalog in 1827; that same year, the art gallery was established, the first annual exhibition opened. Measures were undertaken in 1830 to turn the collections into a circulating library. Once the Athenæum became a circulating library, only four books were allowed to be checked out at a time. By the early 1840s, Boston was a fast-growing city, Pearl Street was built up commercially, with warehouses crowding around the Athenæum building; the trustees moved to construct a new building. Land was acquired on Beacon Street overlooking the Old Granary Burying Ground, the cornerstone was laid in 1847. In 1849, the current location opened at 10½ Beacon Street, it was the first space designed for the Boston Athenæum's specific needs. The first floor held the sculpture gallery; the architect was Edward Clarke Cabot, an artist and dilettante whose design was selected because his ingenious arch over graves in the Granary Burial Ground allowed more space on all floors above the basement level.
The neo-Palladian façade of "Patterson sandstone" remains so today. The Boston Athenæum included sculptures by John Frazee. Charles Ammi Cutter became librarian in 1869; until this point, work had been uninspired on the comprehensive catalog of the library's holdings. The Athenæum's exhibition area opened up when the Museum of Fine Arts moved the collections into their own space overlooking Copley Square. Cutter took advantage of the space, using it to spread out the collections and to revise and complete the five-volume catalog, he created his own classification system, known as Expansive Classification, in order to revise and finish the five-volume catalog. The Cutter system became the basis for the Library of Congress classification system. Many of the Trustees at the Boston Athenæum participated in the movement to create a separate museum in Boston. In the years 1872-1876, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts exhibited in the Athenæum's gallery space while waiting for construction of its building to be complete.
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Battle of Trenton
The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal battle during the American Revolutionary War which took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. After General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton the previous night, Washington led the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian mercenaries garrisoned at Trenton. After a brief battle two-thirds of the Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans; the battle boosted the Continental Army's flagging morale, inspired re-enlistments. The Continental Army had suffered several defeats in New York and had been forced to retreat through New Jersey to Pennsylvania. Morale in the army was low; because the river was icy and the weather severe, the crossing proved dangerous. Two detachments were unable to cross the river, leaving Washington with only 2,400 men under his command in the assault, 3,000 less than planned; the army marched 9 miles south to Trenton. The Hessians had lowered their guard, thinking they were safe from the American army, had no long-distance outposts or patrols.
Washington's forces caught them off guard and, after a short but fierce resistance, most of the Hessians surrendered and were captured, with just over a third escaping across Assunpink Creek. Despite the battle's small numbers, the American victory inspired rebels in the colonies. With the success of the revolution in doubt a week earlier, the army had seemed on the verge of collapse; the dramatic victory attracted new recruits to the ranks. In early December 1776, American morale was low; the Americans had been ousted from New York by the British and their Hessian auxiliaries, the Continental Army was forced to retreat across New Jersey. Ninety percent of the Continental Army soldiers who had served at Long Island were gone. Men had deserted. Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, expressed some doubts, writing to his cousin in Virginia, "I think the game is pretty near up."At the time a small town in New Jersey, was occupied by four regiments of Hessian soldiers commanded by Colonel Johann Rall.
Washington's force comprised 2,400 men, with infantry divisions commanded by Major Generals Nathanael Greene and John Sullivan, artillery under the direction of Brigadier General Henry Knox. George Washington had stationed a spy named posing as a Tory, in Trenton. Honeyman had served with Major General James Wolfe in Quebec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759, had no trouble establishing his credentials as a Tory. Honeyman was a bartender, who traded with the British and Hessians; this enabled him to gather intelligence, to convince the Hessians that the Continental Army was in such a low state of morale that they would not attack Trenton. Shortly before Christmas, he arranged to be captured by the Continental Army, who had orders to bring him to Washington unharmed. After being questioned by Washington, he was imprisoned in a hut, to be tried as a Tory in the morning, but a small fire broke out nearby, enabling him to "escape." The American plan relied on launching coordinated attacks from three directions.
General John Cadwalader would launch a diversionary attack against the British garrison at Bordentown, New Jersey, to block off reinforcements from the south. General James Ewing would take 700 militia across the river at Trenton Ferry, seize the bridge over the Assunpink Creek and prevent enemy troops from escaping; the main assault force of 2,400 men would cross the river 9 mi north of Trenton and split into two groups, one under Greene and one under Sullivan, to launch a pre-dawn attack. Sullivan would attack the town from the south, Greene from the north. Depending on the success of the operation, the Americans would follow up with separate attacks on Princeton and New Brunswick. During the week before the battle, American advance parties began to ambush enemy cavalry patrols, capturing dispatch riders and attacking Hessian pickets; the Hessian commander, to emphasize the danger to his men, sent 100 infantry and an artillery detachment to deliver a letter to the British commander at Princeton.
Washington ordered Ewing and his Pennsylvania militia to try to gain information on Hessian movements and technology. Ewing instead made three successful raids across the river. On December 17 and 18, 1776, they attacked an outpost of jägers and on the 21st, they set fire to several houses. Washington put constant watches on all possible crossings near the Continental Army encampment on the Delaware, as he believed William Howe would launch an attack from the north on Philadelphia if the river froze over. On December 20, 1776, some 2,000 troops led by General Sullivan arrived in Washington's camp, they had been under the command of Charles Lee, had been moving through northern New Jersey when Lee was captured. That same day, an additional 800 troops arrived from Fort Ticonderoga under the command of Horatio Gates. On December 14, 1776, the Hessians arrived in Trenton to establish their winter quarters. At the time, Trenton was a small town with about 100 houses and two main streets, King Street and Queen Street.
Carl von Donop, Rall's superior, had marched south to Mount Holly on December 22 to deal with the resistance in New Jersey, had clashed with some New Jersey militia there on December 23. Donop, who despised Rall, was reluctant to give command of Trent
Commanding General of the United States Army
Prior to the institution of the Chief of Staff of the Army in 1903, there was recognized to be a single senior-most officer in the United States Army though there was not a statutory office as such. During the American Revolutionary War, the title was Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. In 1783, the title was simplified to Senior Officer of the United States Army. In 1821, the title was changed to Commanding General of the United States Army; the office was referred to by various other titles, such as "Major General Commanding the Army" or "General-in-Chief." From 1789 until its abolition in 1903, the position of Commanding General was subordinate to the Secretary of War, although this was at times contested. The position was abolished with the creation of the statutory Chief of Staff of the Army in 1903. † denotes people who died in office. United States military seniority Historical Resources Branch. Eicher, John H.. Civil War High Commands. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Bell, William Gardner. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff 1775-2005: Portraits and Biographical Sketches. Washington, D. C.: United States Army Center of Military History. King, Archibald. Command of the Army. Military Affairs. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Judge Advocate General's School, U. S. Army
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia between September 5, 1774, October 26, 1774; the Second Congress moved incrementally towards independence. It adopted the Lee Resolution which established the new country on July 2, 1776, it agreed to the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776; the Congress acted as the de facto national government of the United States by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, making formal treaties such as the Olive Branch Petition. The Second Continental Congress came together on May 11, 1775 reconvening the First Continental Congress. Many of the 56 delegates who attended the first meeting were in attendance at the second, the delegates appointed the same president and secretary. Notable new arrivals included John Hancock of Massachusetts.
Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses. Henry Middleton was elected as president to replace Randolph. Hancock was elected president on May 24. Delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies were present when the Second Continental Congress convened. Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not send delegates to the Second. On May 13, 1775, Lyman Hall was admitted as a delegate from the Parish of St. John's in the Colony of Georgia, not as a delegate from the colony itself. On July 4, 1775, revolutionary Georgians held a Provincial Congress to decide how to respond to the American Revolution, that congress decided on July 8 to send delegates to the Continental Congress, they arrived on September 13. The First Continental Congress had sent entreaties to King George III to stop the Coercive Acts; the Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775 to plan further responses if the British government had not repealed or modified the acts.
For the first few months of the war, the Patriots carried on their struggle in an ad-hoc and uncoordinated manner. They had seized arsenals, driven out royal officials, besieged the British army in the city of Boston. On June 14, 1775, the Congress voted to create the Continental Army out of the militia units around Boston and appointed George Washington of Virginia as commanding general. On July 6, 1775, Congress approved a Declaration of Causes outlining the rationale and necessity for taking up arms in the Thirteen Colonies. On July 8, they extended the Olive Branch Petition to the British Crown as a final attempt at reconciliation. Silas Deane was sent to France as a minister of the Congress, American ports were reopened in defiance of the British Navigation Acts; the Continental Congress had no explicit legal authority to govern, but it assumed all the functions of a national government, such as appointing ambassadors, signing treaties, raising armies, appointing generals, obtaining loans from Europe, issuing paper money, disbursing funds.
The Congress had no authority to levy taxes and was required to request money and troops from the states to support the war effort. Individual states ignored these requests. Congress was moving towards declaring independence from the British Empire in 1776, but many delegates lacked the authority from their home governments to take such a drastic action. Advocates of independence moved to have reluctant colonial governments revise instructions to their delegations, or replace those governments which would not authorize independence. On May 10, 1776, Congress passed a resolution recommending that any colony with a government, not inclined toward independence should form one that was. On May 15, they adopted a more radical preamble to this resolution, drafted by John Adams, which advised throwing off oaths of allegiance and suppressing the authority of the Crown in any colonial government that still derived its authority from the Crown; that same day, the Virginia Convention instructed its delegation in Philadelphia to propose a resolution that called for a declaration of independence, the formation of foreign alliances, a confederation of the states.
The resolution of independence was delayed for several weeks, as advocates of independence consolidated support in their home governments. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee offered a resolution before the Congress declaring the colonies independent, he urged Congress to resolve "to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances" and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states. Lee argued that independence was the only way to ensure a foreign alliance, since no European monarchs would deal with America if they remained Britain's colonies. American leaders had rejected the divine right of kings in the New World, but recognized the necessity of proving their credibility in the Old World. Congress formally adopted the resolution of independence, but only after creating three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a Model Treaty, the Articles of Confederation; the Declaration announced the states' entry into the international
United States one-dollar bill
The United States one-dollar bill is a denomination of United States currency. An image of the first U. S. President, George Washington, based on the Athenaeum Portrait, a painting by Gilbert Stuart, is featured on the obverse, the Great Seal of the United States is featured on the reverse; the one-dollar bill has the oldest overall design of all U. S. currency being produced. The obverse design of the dollar bill seen today debuted in 1963 when it was first issued as a Federal Reserve Note; the inclusion of the motto, "In God We Trust," on all currency was required by law in 1955, first appeared on paper money in 1957. An individual dollar bill is less formally known as a one, a single, a buck, a greenback, a bone, a bill; the Federal Reserve says the average life of a $1 bill in circulation is 5.8 years before it is replaced because of wear. 42% of all U. S. currency produced in 2009 were one-dollar bills. In 2017, there are 12.1 billion one-dollar bills in circulation worldwide 1862: The first one-dollar bill was issued as a Legal Tender Note with a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.
1869: The $1 United States Note was redesigned with a portrait of George Washington in the center and a vignette of Christopher Columbus sighting land to the left. The obverse of the note featured green and blue tinting. Although this note is technically a United States Note, TREASURY NOTE appeared on it instead of UNITED STATES NOTE. 1874: The Series of 1869 United States Note was revised. Changes on the obverse included removing the green and blue tinting, adding a red floral design around the word WASHINGTON D. C. and changing the term TREASURY NOTE to UNITED STATES NOTE. The reverse was redesigned; this note was issued as Series of 1875 and 1878. 1880: The red floral design around the words ONE DOLLAR and WASHINGTON D. C. on the United States Note was replaced with a large red seal. Versions had blue serial numbers and a small seal moved to the left side of the note. 1886: The first woman to appear on U. S. currency, Martha Washington, was featured on the $1 silver certificate. The reverse of the note featured an ornate design that occupied the entire note, excluding the borders.
1890: One-dollar Treasury or "Coin Notes" were issued for government purchases of silver bullion from the silver mining industry. The reverse featured the large word ONE in the center surrounded by an ornate design that occupied the entire note. 1891: The reverse of the Series of 1890 Treasury Note was redesigned because the treasury felt that it was too "busy," which would make it too easy to counterfeit. More open space was incorporated into the new design; the obverse was unchanged. 1896: The famous "Educational Series" Silver Certificate was issued. The entire obverse was covered with artwork of allegorical figures representing "history instructing youth" in front of Washington D. C; the reverse featured portraits of George and Martha Washington surrounded by an ornate design that occupied the entire note. 1899: The $1 Silver Certificate was again redesigned. The obverse featured a vignette of the United States Capitol behind a bald eagle perched on an American flag. Below that were small portraits of Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant to the right.
1917: The obverse of the $1 United States Note was changed with the removal of ornamental frames that surrounded the serial numbers. 1918: The only large-sized, Federal Reserve Note-like $1 bill was issued as a Federal Reserve Bank Note. Each note was an obligation of the issuing Federal Reserve Bank and could only be redeemed at that corresponding bank; the obverse of the note featured a borderless portrait of George Washington to the left and wording in the entire center. The reverse featured a bald eagle in flight clutching an American flag. 1923: Both the one-dollar United States Note and Silver Certificate were redesigned. Both notes featured the same reverse and an identical obverse with the same border design and portrait of George Washington; the only difference between the two notes was the color of ink used for the numeral 1 crossed by the word DOLLAR, Treasury seal, serial numbers along with the wording of the obligations. These dollar bills were the first and only large-size notes with a standardized design for different types of notes of the same denomination.
In 1929, all currency was changed to the size, familiar today. The first one-dollar bills were issued as silver certificates under Series of 1928; the Treasury seal and serial numbers were dark blue. The obverse was nearly identical to the Series of 1923 $1 silver certificate, but the Treasury seal featured spikes around it and a large gray ONE replaced the blue "1 DOLLAR." The reverse, had the same border design as the Series of 1923 $1 bill, but the center featured a large ornate ONE superimposed by ONE DOLLAR. These are known as "Funnybacks" due to the rather odd-looking "ONE" on the reverse; these $1 silver certificates were issued until 1934. In 1933, Series of 1928 $1 United States Notes were issued to supplement the supply of $1 Silver Certificates, its Treasury seal and serial numbers were red and there was different wording on the obverse of the note. However, a month after their production, it was realized that there would be no real need for
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